1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of semiconductor devices and particularly to a semiconductor device structure and method for forming a light emitting transistor particularly suited to silicon process integrated circuits and related semiconductor components.
The invention light emitting transistor is of particular use when coupled through a light transmissive medium to a light sensitive receiving element such as a photo diode or photo transistor for coupling signal information free of disturbance from electromagnetic noise sources.
A principal advantage of the invention light emitting transistor is that it can be fabricated as elements in an array of silicon bipolar transistors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Presently known light emitting diodes are made out of III-V compound semiconductor materials such as the binary compound GaAs and the ternary compound GaAlAs. The use of these materials prevent the compatible integration of these devices on silicon process integrated circuit chips. Light-detecting devices such as photodiodes and phototransistors can be processed on the same silicon chip as other signal processing and amplifying devices. The availability of a silicon compatible bipolar light emitting transistor when combined with available fiber optic or other compatible light coupling medium means provides a signal coupling means from a first integrated circuit to a second integrated circuit free of interference from electromagnetic or other radio frequency disturbances.